.......or can things only get better?

I just wish I knew. Why? Well, the start of the year, you probably all remember me moaning about losing my job, even though I was trying to help people. And then being on the social while I struggled to find another job. And even when I found one, I still had to wait to get paid for nearly seven weeks.

Then I lost Nigel, one of my best friends, to an unsuspected heart attack. That came as such a shock, it was unreal. I'd known the guy for years. He was not only my friend, but my mentor. I still miss him.

Then little Liam. The 17 year old fellow Liverpool fan I mentioned two blogs back. 17, and the poor kid contracted, and eventually died from, stomach cancer. And having met him and his family, that hit me rather hard too.

OK - I know it will have hit the families harder for both of these, but it still hurts.

But now, yes you've guessed it. It's my turn. I'm not just on the outside looking in anymore. It's now my family that has been hit. My nan is in hospital suffering from lung cancer. Has been for a couple weeks now. OK, she's 84 years old, love her. And she's smoked for 66 of those 84 years, so I guess you could say she's had a good innings. But it was still unexpected. Nobody knew it was coming. And when she went into hospital for the second time in a week, we knew it was serious. They kept her in that second time. For the first week, we didn't know whether the tumour was actually malignant or not, but eventually tests confirmed that it was.

I'm going down to see her next week. Got the coach tickets booked. Plan on spending about 4 days with my family - and a lot of that will probably be at Nan's bedside. I just hope Nan manages to hang on until I get down.

So there you have it. It's been a terrible start to the year, what with one thing or another. What I don't know, is which addage will prevail. Things may only get better from here on in. Or the year may have started as it means to go on.

I just don't know.